"Fifty Shades of Grey" bounds box office with record debut

1. Fifty Shades of Grey – $81.6 million [debut week; $90.6 million since Thursday] Moviegoers definitely were in the mood for a little excitement this Valentine’s Day leading to the biggest Presidents’ Day opening ever. Even more astonishing, internationally the film did even better with a record $150 million opening, a record for an R rated film.

Credit “Grey’s” fantastic marketing campaign for intriguing audiences without revealing much about the film, which was enough to lure in newcomers and make readers of the book excited. With a meager $40 million budget, this is going to be one of the year’s most profitable films. How’s this for a shocker, the film’s opening outperformed box office phenom “American Sniper,” which kicked off its wide opening with $89.2 million. Expect this to reach $150 million domestically by this time next week.

2. Kingsman: The Secret Service – $35.6 million [debut week] “Grey” was able to lure couples on Valentine’s Day, but didn’t significantly impact the week’s other big new release. “Kinsgman” should reach $41 million by the end of the holiday weekend.

3. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water – $30.5 million [2nd week; $93.6 million] Last week’s champ held up fairly well against the newcomers as it was the only option for families.

4. American Sniper -$16.4 million [5th week; $304 million] “Sniper” is now targeting “Guardians of the Galaxy” ($331 million) for 2014’s second highest grossing film. That stat makes little sense to me considering so much more of its gross has come in 2015. Anyhow, it should become the new No. 2 in two more weeks.

5. Jupiter Ascending – $9.4 million [2nd week; $32.5 million in total] Warner Bros. has the year’s first major flop as the $175 million production looks like it will struggle to reach even half of that cost.